Yaxchilan & Bonampak

Friday, October 5th, 2007

To understand why we went to Bonampak, I must first tell you about Luis. He came as a package deal with the Tikal sunrise-tour, which was the only way into the site at that hour. He was a good guide, at least this is what we thought at the time, though a little pretentious repeatedly telling us what page we could find his name on in the Lonely Planet guidebook, and how indispensable he was to the producers of Survivor-Guatemala. However, he seemed to know where to find monkeys, tarantulas, and the best angles for the shot. I even felt bad for the other guide (who in his turn seemed to loathe Luis when his back was turned). “Monkeys Ricardo?” Luis would ask, purposefully in English, with his whole group in tow. “No?” he sighed loudly. “Tarantulas? No?! Eh Ricardo, Ricardo…” and Luis would turn back to us, his group, flawlessly reciting the next chapter of his speech.

As part of the narration, Luis told us about Tikal’s frescoes. Blindingly beautiful, they were no longer open for public view as people kept writing their names on the antique paint or, better yet, scratching in it phrases like “Juan + Maria = Amor”. Understandably enough, I only shook my head in resentment of the vandals, and, when the tour was over, approached Luis who has just finished his “And if you would like to tip thank the guide, I’ll be right here” speech. “May I help you with anything else?” asked Luis as he kept receiving bill after bill and nodding in thanks, his left eye counting the loot, his right fixed now on me. “I only wanted to say thanks. It was great,” and I shook his outstretched hand. “I only wish we could see those frescoes.” I was sincere, and, as I often do, simply verbalized my thought out loud, but to my surprise Luis jumped at the opportunity. “It is possible,” he said in a low voice that was not exactly a whisper. “Come. Let’s talk. Let me see… I will find out.” And he set out for the site’s gates with us four trotting behind, all giddy and excited.

( more… )

Tags: pretrip, ruins
Posted in Places»North America»Mexico | No Comments »

Mystery Postcards

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

Thought we’d try something new… We had a crazy idea of selling Mystery Postcards from around the world on eBay. So today we posted our first auction.

Now, we know we should be mailing postcards to our friends just because, and this is not a call for bids. But if you have any tips or comments on the subject we’d love to hear them.

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Howler Monkey

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

Tags: arcas
Posted in Places»Central America»Guatemala | No Comments »

La Blanca & Yaxha

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007

Hate to sound redundant, but today’s forecast doesn’t yield anything new other than more problems with the car. We were having the worst luck! Everything that could break – broke, and anything that could have gone wrong – went. Even as simple task of ordering a part to be delivered from Guat City (we gave them the part number and everything), resulted yet in another day of delays when instead of a generator they sent us a starter.

I could see how this was getting to the guys. gadikus and Rita were having to shave day after day out of their six week vacation and there were no signs of exhaust clouds on the horizon.

Frustrated and bored, we turned to Deter. Unfortunately, the German architect and owner of Café Yaxha knew nothing about cars (even German ones), but he did give us a number of a driver who took us not only to the ruins of Yaxha with monkeys swinging on jungle vines from tree to tree and the pyramids that made you understand what were the spaceships in films like Star-Gate based on, but also to the seldom visited, still in a stage of excavations, site of La Blanca where Spanish archeologists worked on uncovering something they call “graffiti” – ancient line drawings scratched in soft stone or stucco.

We observed the archeologists at work, putting transparencies to the walls and tracing the lines with different colored markers depending on the level of drawing clarity (doesn’t sound too exiting? Well, you just had to be there, I guess) and watched the locals dig into the soil to uncover step after step of once lost pyramids.

( Photos )

Tags: ruins
Posted in Places»Central America»Guatemala | No Comments »